Year 11 Commerce

What is Economics about?

Economics examines how people make choices about the use of limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants. Economics helps explain and predict how goods and services will be produced and consumed.

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and of the forces that affect their behaviour and the shape of their institutions, such as the value of leisure time, consumer preferences, and the extent of government intervention.

Economics explores:

• issues of sustainability (efficient use of scarce resources)
• enterprise (identifying profit-maximizing levels of output)
• citizenship (economic decisions affecting New Zealand society)
• globalization (the benefits of international trade).

Economics considers the factors that influence the well-being of people and aims to find solutions to improve people's standard of living.

Economics has an important role to play in the education of all students, particularly in our rapidly changing society. Understanding basic economic concepts and the way in which the New Zealand economy operates is important for young people if they are to function in and contribute to our society.

The Aims of the Economic Syllabus

At Year 11, key economic conceptual understandings related to scarcity are introduced. Students gain an understanding of everyday micro-economic choices consumers, producers, and government need to make, because of scarcity, and the implications of these choices for society. Students are introduced to the supply and demand model, using it to support predictions they make about the effect of choices on society.